Monday 24 December 2018

The lost magic of childhood Christmas



It’s Christmas, and the nostalgia of all years gone and all fulfilled and unfulfilled dreams is overwhelming. Here is a Greek poem of mine about the lost magic of childhood Christmas:

Η χαμένη μαγεία των παιδικών Χριστουγέννων

Ήρθε τότε ένας χειμώνας
Στα ολόλευκα ντυμένος
Θλιβερός και πεινασμένος
Και με ένα φύσημά του
Σάρωσε όλες τις χαλκομανίες
Κι έγινε η φωτιά στο τζάκι στάχτες

Κι ένα αστέρι εκεί πάνω
Στο βουβό τον ουρανό
Που τρεμόσβηνε δειλά
Κάπου πήγε να κρυφτεί
Σ’ ένα σύννεφο μολυβένιο
Και γεμάτο με βροχή

Τα Χριστούγεννα εκείνα
Χάθηκε όλη η μαγεία
Ψάχνω όλα αυτά τα χρόνια
Ίσως κάπου να τη βρω
Μα θα έχει ξεθωριάσει
Και αδύνατο να τη δω



Sunday 16 December 2018

Some of the challenges about teaching adults-beginners



The greatest challenge about teaching adults -- especially beginners --is how to reinforce grammatical structures in a stimulating way. Course books typically provide plenty of practice in more or less repetitive exercises, which are meant to hammer home to the learner the new grammar. Those exercises mostly consist of single sentences with limited vocabulary.

My feeling is that once the grammar and the vocabulary of the unit have been presented and consolidated, the teacher is still left with time on their hands, time which they must fill with meaningful input before moving on to the next unit.

Besides, compared to young learners, adults are far quicker at understanding and applying rules and they also have a head start in terms of experience and factual knowledge and, therefore, a higher boredom threshold in class.

I have been trying various ways of interspersing the wasteland of grammar and repetition with some extracts from poems and songs. My main criteria for the selection of this supplementary material are its potential for reiteration of the structures presented in the course book and the intellectual stimulation it provides for my students.

 I will illustrate my point by providing an example which worked quite well with one of my adult students. The grammar practised in the course book is “there is/are” in all three forms – positive, interrogative and negative. Along with the practice material in the course components, I handed out the following:


Apart from striking a chord with the student, it is the kind of input that the student will go back to, if not to remind themselves of the grammar, to relish in it.

Before completing the work on this specific unit, I provided the lyrics of the following song, which the student was to listen to in the comfort of their home.


While I am aware of the fact that the song as a whole will not make perfect sense to a beginner- or elementary-level student, I have reached the conclusion that nuggets of gold are better than no gold at all. After all, we do not understand everything in its entirety in real life, but we don’t let this deprive us of the joy of discovering things.


Wednesday 5 December 2018

Writing a description of an object: a playful challenge



Describing an object is often a topic set at high-level   English language exams. It is normally one part of a composite task.
Descriptions are a real challenge and not only for the student but for the teacher as well. Not everyone has an eye for detail or is gifted enough to bring an object alive through the accurate use of language.

When you describe something, you have to know the appropriate terms and you can’t resort to generalities as they do not contribute to the task by any means.

Besides, you need to “deconstruct” the object described so as to handle its different parts while not losing sight of the whole. Last but not least, you have to prioritise the parts you describe on the basis of an underlying principle: larger parts-smaller parts, interior-exterior, upper-lower, right-left and vice versa. The list is indicative but far from comprehensive.

The ugly question that arises is whether we need to develop the skill at all. I dare say that it is well worth cultivating as the description of anything leads to a better understanding and raises questions which would have not otherwise been posed. It leads to a more profound and thorough knowledge of anything, and it is of utmost importance in science too.


There are some ways of leading up to full-scale descriptions. Perhaps “game” is not the right word; consequently, I will call the activity a “challenge”. 

The teacher or different groups of students think of, research and write a description of an object without naming it. The other groups have to guess the actual object. The description should be structured as a series of “detachable” or “interchangeable” chunks of meaning so that the information can be revealed step by step – or should I say chunk by chunk – and not necessarily in a linear way but selectively depending on how difficult or easy the group may wish to make the task for the others.

The activity is appropriate for any level of English.


Here are some examples at different levels:

TOOTHBRUSH: a stick of hard plastic with a head of bristle at its end used as a tool of oral hygiene – teeth and tongue

RING: band of a precious metal often set with gemstones (diamond, ruby, emerald etc) worn round a finger offered as a vow of love or worn as a pledge of allegiance

CONCH SHELL: It is an elongated spiral with two ends: one pointed and another tubular. Close to the tubular end is a small cavity. There are five whorls on its surface of an off-white and vanilla colour.
If you hold it to your ear, you are supposed to hear the sound of the ocean.

Here is a graphic way of what I mean by detachable chunks of meaning: